Quarterly Feedlot Health Reporting

Summary

The Meat Industry Strategic Plan (MISP 2020) outlines a key imperative of minimising the impact of endemic disease on the red meat industry. Maintaining feedlot animal health is a key goal of the Australian feedlot industry, maximising animal welfare and performance. Health conditions such as bovine respiratory disease and lameness commonly impact Australian feedlot cattle. 

To assess industry progress towards decreasing the prevalence of these conditions, data collection is required across the Australian feedlot industry. This project will continue to collect data from feedlot health software programs and report aggregated ‘de-identified’ animal health data to MLA to maintain strict confidentiality of feedlot data sources. 

Quarterly reports will be produced for MLA for an agreed range of health parameters for confidential internal discussion between MLA and the Australian Lot Feeders' Association. In addition, analysis of data will occur to determine whole of industry progress in feedlot animal health over the period between 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2020.

Objectives

• Provide a quarterly animal health report to MLA, summarising animal health statistics for an agreed range of health parameters.

• Maintain both industry co-operator and consulting veterinarian confidentiality and commercial sensitivity requirements.

• Provide information for MLA-ALFA on the progress of feedlot animal health (morbidity and mortality by diagnosis/cause) to inform future R&D investment prioritisation.

Key findings

• Authorised animal health data used in the project has been collected by exporting data files from on-site feedlot software systems of 21 feedlots and importing to a centralised animal health database.
• In general, over the past five years, the industry has made considerable progress in improving animal health conditions and minimising their morbidity rates.
• Morbidity as weighted average percent per closed lots has improved from 2015 to 2020.
• The Overall Mortality per 1,000 Head Days has shown a slight downward trend from the visual observation, although no statistically strong relationship was detected from the linear regression model.

Benefits to industry

Over the last several years, the Australian meat industry has aligned with the objectives of maintaining feedlot animal health and minimising the impact of endemic disease on the red meat industries.

MLA action

Informed by this research project MLA continues to invest in Bovine respiratory disease preventative development, and development of an animal welfare assessment framework.

Future research

Internal feedlot operations in collaboration with their consulting veterinarians should participate in internal industry benchmarking to promote a continuous decrease in animal morbidity and mortality rates.